Drift Compatible
by Aggressively Hospitable
Summary: When the Wall of Life goes up on the West Coast, Team Scorpion, a world reknowned Jaeger team is moved to Hong Kong where Marshal Gallo is now commanding. But will Walter's complicated history and unique brain composition keep him from saving the world as a Jaeger Pilot? What will happen when he meets the one person who just might be compatible with? Will he take a leap of faith?
1. Fighting Kaiju

Drift Compatible

Chapter 1

Paige sighed as she carried four cups of coffee to her desk, two mugs in each hand with two bagels stacked on each set and an apple held carefully between her teeth. Her phone was buzzing and she knew her son was calling her, which only hurried her steps to her station. She managed to put her things down without spilling and quickly answered the phone.

"Yes, Ralph?"

"Mom, there's a new team coming in from California today; have you met them yet?" he asked excitedly.

"No, not yet," Paige replied with an amused smile. "Why are you so interested in the team from California? You've never shown this much interest in any other team."

"I have to get to school, Mom. I'll see you after," Ralph grumbled instead of responding to her question.

Paige sighed yet again as her son abruptly ended their phone conversation and sat down at her desk. Then she pulled her headset on and began to watch the monitors while eating her apple in silence until she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"They're here," her supervisor said as he nodded toward the elevators where Marshal Gallo stood waiting for her.

"Oh," she replied quickly as she jumped up and grabbed the dossiers before walking up to the Marshal. The team was arriving early apparently.

"Marshal," Paige greeted.

"Officer Dineen," he returned cordially with a nod as he pushed the button on the elevator.

They waited silently until the elevator doors opened, and Marshal Gallo gestured for her to enter first.

When the doors, closed Paige chanced a glance at the Marshal who was watching the elevator numbers light up. She cleared her throat to get his attention.

"Yes, Officer?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Paige requested respectfully.

"Permission granted," Gallo replied.

"Sir, why did you request me for this team? There are other J-Tech Technicians who have done this for much longer than I have-" she began before Gallo cut her off.

"Officer, I haven't been here long, but I can spot talent from a thousand miles away. You are one of the best at what you do, and you're also a people-person. I have seen Rangers stay in the drift twice as long and complete their missions because you're there to guide them. This team that is coming in needs you more than you or they realize," he explained.

Paige smiled at the praise but her doubts were far from being chased away.

They stepped off the elevator and walked towards the helicopter landing. Paige clutched the dossiers to her chest to keep them from flying away. It was sunny but windy, and she squinted her eyes in the early morning light as she caught sight of a helicopter coming in for a landing. She took a deep breath and imagined how excited Ralph would probably be if he was there with her. The thought put a gentle smile on her face as she watched the helicopter land and everyone disembark. The first was a dark haired gentleman who turned around to help a larger man get out, the latter of whom barely setting his feet on the ground before vomiting into a bag off to the side. Then a small Korean woman exited with a third gentleman wearing a porkpie hat also appearing close behind her. The group waited for their unsteady companion to regain his composure before going any further.

Paige observed the four curiously, if not also a bit warily, as they finally seemed to regroup and began heading towards her and the Marshal.

"Thank you for coming," Gallo greeted them before turning to Paige. "Officer Dineen, this is Dr. Walter O'Brien, Ranger Happy Quinn, her drift partner Dr. Toby Curtis, and Dr. Sylvester Dodd. They make up Team Scorpion."

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Paige Dineen, and I'll be your Jaeger Technician Chief," Paige introduced herself as she offered her hand to shake all of theirs.

The team nodded and each gave her a quick glance but otherwise didn't say anything in return.

Paige looked to the Marshal for help at the sudden awkwardness.

"Let's get inside," Gallo suggested as he turned and led the way with Paige flanking him.

Walter and the rest of the team followed them inside the LOCCENT.

"She's cute," Happy teased in a whisper to Walter, apparently noticing he hadn't taken his eyes off her since he had shaken her hand.

He tore his gaze away from Paige's back to give Happy an unimpressed look.

"I didn't see a wedding ring either," Toby chimed in.

"Guys, knock it off," Walter warned in a low tone so Paige or Marshal Gallo wouldn't hear.

Once in the elevator, Gallo gestured for Paige to hand out the dossiers.

"Your Jaeger 'Scorpion' will be arriving shortly in Dock B5. I already have a team of technicians at the ready to do whatever repairs and upgrades needed," Marshal Gallo announced before turning his attention to Walter. "I understand you're looking to be a Pilot again."

Walter took a deep breath. "I'm seriously considering it. If I can find a way to pilot a Jaeger solo without killing myself…" he answered, his words laced with something that sounded vaguely like resentment and latent hostility.

"Well until you figure that out, we can start tryouts to see if you can be compatible with anyone here." Gallo replied.

Walter set his jaw and huffed through his nose. "Okay," he muttered.

Five Years Earlier

Walter and his sister Megan walked toward their Jaeger the Bean Neigh, a Scottish folklore term for a death fairy.

"Ready for a showdown, Walt?" Megan asked as she stood on the right side of the Jaeger.

She flexed and fisted her hands a few times, her excitement making her nerves bounce a little more than she thought they should. They were, after all, relatively new pilots, barely graduated from the academy when they were pulled into their first few fights. Walter really should have been the dominant pilot, but he was still too green even though every test had shown that he was one of the more powerful pilots the academy had ever seen. But because of his unique and brilliant nature, he couldn't drift normally. It was only because Megan was his sister that he was able to drift with her at all.

"Absolutely. It's only a category one; should be a piece of cake," Walter answered with a smug grin as he was hooked up to the Jaeger.

"A _large_ category one. Keep your head on, little brother," Megan warned teasingly.

Walter smiled back before he relaxed and took a calming breath, clearing his mind as he waited for Megan to initiate the neural handshake that in turn commenced the neural bridge. Memories of their shared childhood flew from one to the other; their father farming, their mother making Haggis and making both of them gag, playing tag around the small farm house in the country side.

The bridge was established and both Megan and Walter opened their eyes and grinned. Out of their peripheral vision, they watched the floor dropping away, allowing their footholds to move and therefore move the rest of the Jaeger.

"Marshal Gallo on deck," Leon, their J-Tech announced as he gave the comm over to the Marshal to give Megan and Walter their instructions.

"Team Galloway is engaging the Kaiju, codenamed Pillager. Your mission is to maintain the perimeter," Gallo instructed.

"Yes sir," Megan answered and mentally prodded her brother to agree.

"Yes sir," Walter answered a moment later then turned off the comm. "You know the Galloway is ill-equipped. She's had issues with her missile system and she leaks oil like a sieve."

"We have our orders and we should follow them," Megan affirmed, not liking the situation any more than her brother did.

They watched as the Kaiju lifted its large cleaver-like head from the water as they turned their large beacon light on for Galloway's benefit. With one swift ramming of its head, it cut off Galloway's right arm.

"We need to go help them," Walter insisted as his breathing got harder.

Megan turned the comm back on. "Sir, Galloway lost an arm, permission to intervene," Megan requested.

"Permission denied. Galloway still has fight in her, Ranger," Gallo answered firmly.

Walter shifted his weight in his stance anxiously as he watched Pillager pick up the severed arm and whip Galloway with it, knocking the legs out from under her.

"Permission to intervene!" Megan cried out again, voicing Walter's demands screaming in her own head.

"Keep the perimeter!" Gallo repeated. "You have hundreds of thousands of people on shore to protect. That's an order Ranger."

"Fuck this, permission my ass," Megan hissed as she hit the comm off and mentally prodded her brother to start moving with her.

"Bean Neigh, you're being ordered to stop and maintain the perimeter," Leon reminded them, but the bite was out of his tone since he inwardly agreed with what the O'Brien's were doing.

The Killian's, the pilots of the Galloway, were like family to both himself and the O'Brien's.

Megan and Walter ignored the order as they practically ran to the Galloway's side. Three strides away, Pillager muscled Galloway down and crushed their core under a clawed foot, instantly killing them and rendering Galloway completely destroyed.

'Light the bastard up,' Megan nudged Walter as he raised his weaponed arm and fired missile after missile at the Kaiju, who in turn used its massive clawed paws and swiped at them, the tips of which caught the armor and exposed the core.

"Get out of there!" Leon pleaded over the comm.

"No," Megan and Walter both answered as Megan's arm transformed into a giant hammer and did an upswing at the Kaiju's head. It made contact and hit the jaw, breaking it but doing little else besides pissing it off even more.

They deployed body flares to distract it as Megan changed her arm's hand into a talon, and Walter and Megan moved both arms together and sunk in their metal claws into Pillager's head, crushing it's skull and killing it.

Megan and Walter watched with satisfaction as the life drained from the monster's eyes before the entire body became limp.

Usually Walter would be booming with congratulations to himself for once again being the hero and saving the day, but Megan prodded him that they should try to pick up Galloway's remains.

They dropped the lifeless Kaiju into the water and walked over to where parts of Galloway were sticking up from the water. They found the crushed core and head, still attached, eye piece shattered and flooded, the Killians' bodies still in their suits and mostly intact. They cradled the remains and walked back to shore.

The whole way back Walter felt a distinct pain in his extremities. He did a self-check and could tell it wasn't coming from him. The Jaeger doesn't feel pain, which meant that Megan must have been the one in pain. It was as if she had run several marathons before she got into the Jaeger.

"You okay, Megan?" Walter asked out loud.

"I'm fine. Let's just get them back to shore," she answered through gritted teeth.

The Killian's had become like a second set of parents to her, and she was already starting to mourn their loss.

Once they were back in the hanger and the neural bridge had been disintegrated, Walter noticed the pain fade instantly but that Megan still seemed to be struggling. She was crying. He assumed it was because they had lost the Killian's, and so he picked her up and carried her to her room to help her regain her composure. They would be having a funeral in a few days.

Megan was crying for many reasons. She had felt this pain before. She didn't know what it was, and it was scaring her. Today had been the worst she had experienced, and Walter had felt it in the drift. There was no way he wouldn't bring it up later.

A week later, Walter stood next to his sister, clutching her hand and wondering if she could even feel it as she sat on the doctor's examination table.

Dr. Leibendorf entered the room with a grim face, and the siblings immediately braced themselves for the worst. "I'm sorry, Ms. O'Brien, but it appears you have MS," he informed them as he held up pictures from her MRI and pointed to all of the lesions on her brain.

"But none of this was here two years ago when I got an MRI to become a Jaeger Pilot," Megan argued as she looked at them disbelievingly.

"That's because they weren't there two years ago. I suspect the mental and physiological toll from the neural bridge may have been a large factor in the progression of the disease."

"If," Walter began, having difficulty in finding his voice. "If she had never set foot in a Jaeger, would this still have happened?"

"It's hard to say. We can speculate, but what we should be doing is finding a way to make your daily life as manageable and enjoyable as possible," Dr. Leibendorf replied as he addressed Megan, his warm bedside manner appeasing her but not satisfying Walter in the least.

"I want to see all the test results," Walter demanded.

The doctor looked at Megan who nodded her permission before the he handed Walter her file. Walter spent the next few minutes memorizing every page, each one more damning than the next. He handed it back, his anger barely contained in his frame as his brain raced and his consciousness stabbing his heart with guilt.

"We should go," Walter murmured to his sister, taking her hand again and trying to give it a comforting squeeze.

"For now, I think you should start using a cane. If it gets any worse, you may have to use crutches. I have a few medications we can try," the doctor offered.

"Of course, I'll try anything at least once," Megan answered, trying to keep her composure despite feeling numb beyond words.

Hours later, Megan sat on her bed, motionless as she looked at her hands, the crackly feeling moving over the nerve endings like they had been doing for a while now. Tears welled in her eyes as her vision blurred.

Walter came in and she jolted a little at the sound of the door opening.

"I knocked," he stated quietly as he watched his sister wipe away tears that had threatened to fall only moments before.

"Sorry. I didn't hear you," she whispered as she tried to smile for him.

"I did this to you," Walter admitted in a self-depreciating tone as he sat next to her on the bed.

"No you didn't," Megan argued.

"Yes I did," he repeated more firmly. "I was the one who wanted to be a pilot. I was the one that talked you into going to the academy. I was the one who pushed for all of this to happen, and now..." Water's voice trailed off.

"Hey," Megan cut in as she wrapped her arms around him. "You, didn't do this to me. It's my own body betraying me, and it would have happened eventually no matter what," she tried to reason.

"I'll never set foot in a Jaeger again," Walter promised as he hugged his sister back.

"No, don't say that. You are the best pilot this world has ever seen. You just need to find someone else to drift with, that's all. Don't let me stop you from saving the world," Megan encouraged.

Walter considered her for a moment before dropping his shoulders in defeat. "Okay," he muttered.

* * *

><p><em>Author's notes- Greatest thanks to Alaburn for betaing this for me. <em>

_This was a prompt from Tumblr that quickly took over my life. _


	2. Meeting Ralph

Drift Compatible

Chapter 2

Once the meeting had ended, Paige went back to her desk with the intention to finish her few remaining assignments. But Marshal Gallo encouraged her to go 'hang out' with her new team, for the purpose of getting to know them better and thus being a better J-tech for them.

Paige consented and made her way back to the elevators, but once the doors were closed she groaned. "I can already tell they don't like me much," she muttered to herself as she rubbed her temples.

She began quizzing herself on each team member of Team Scorpion as the elevator made its slow progress. Her research showed that they were incorrigible to say the least. They were notorious for not working well with others as well as inventing half the software and hardware used on almost all Jaegers now. But with the Jaeger program coming to a close because of the Wall going up, Paige told herself she should be grateful to be able to work with the legends themselves.

She arrived at their hanger and observed them for a moment as they watched their Jaeger being put into dock. Happy yelled at each and every single one of the guys transporting it to not put a scratch or dent on it or she would skin them all alive.

"You are really protective over your Jaeger," Paige noted as she strode bravely up to them.

"I practically built it myself," Happy defended hotly. "I know every single one of its million and a half rivets, bolts, and screws. I designed it and it has yet to meet a Kaiju it couldn't defeat."

Paige put her hands up in mock surrender. "I didn't mean any disrespect. Most Rangers only care that their Jaeger simply works, so it's nice to see a team care so passionately about their Jaeger," said pacified, causing Happy to visibly relax and back off. "So how did you guys get into the Jaeger Program?" Paige asked the group.

"I'm a mathematician, and the JA recruited me to help them run the numbers for finding a power source to run power to the Jaegers," Sylvester offered.

"Awesome. I heard you were the lead scientist in refining the Jaegers. The more muscle strands, the easier the toll on the pilots," Paige praised and then smiled at the slight blush that crept over his cheeks. Then she turned her attention to the man standing next to him. "Dr. Curtis, right?" she asked as she nodded toward him.

"Yes, but you can call me Toby," he confirmed with a proud smile.

"I understand you had a hand in helping come up with the criteria for what makes a good Jaeger pilot."

"Yes, I did. I did most of the work, honestly. The JA never gives me enough credit," he boasted.

"Didn't you also help set the perimeters for better neural bridges?" she added.

"Someone has done their homework," he said appreciatively.

"A little bit," Paige admitted before turning her attention to the last member of the group. "And Dr. O'Brien, is it?"

"Walter," he corrected, extending his arm for another handshake.

Paige shook his hand and watched as he gave her a rather unsettling smile. It occurred to her that he may have been trying to be charming but was failing miserably. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. It was cute, and in a way its own kind of charming.

"Walter, I understand it was you who put this team together," she remarked once she got herself together.

"Yes. Sylvester and Toby were at JA when I was there, and we formed our own ragtag group. Happy was the lead engineer at my first station," he answered.

"So how did you two get into piloting?" she asked as she gestured to Toby and Happy.

"It was an act of desperation," Happy snorted.

"Actually, Happy had just built the first digital Jaeger," Toby boasted. "It was a scaled down one, but it needed a pilot so she piloted it herself. Then when it got scaled up she needed a co-pilot, and I volunteered and turned out we were drift compatible. It's been smooth sailing ever since."

The rest of the team gave him strange looks while Happy rolled her eyes.

"Not even close, but we worked the kinks out," Happy explained.

"And gained a few," Toby murmured cheekily before Happy elbowed him in the side. "Ow, don't hurt me, baby," he cooed.

"And what about you?" Paige asked as she turned her attention back to Happy.

"No J-tech gets my back story, not even a chief," Happy clipped.

"I wasn't asking your life history," Paige clarified calmly if not just a little dejectedly.

Happy still cut her eyes at her before she turned and watched the crew secure her Jaeger.

"Okay then... I'll just get back to work. This was fun," Paige tried to smooth over as she started backing away.

"Anytime," Sylvester tried to call after her as she walked away.

Toby, Sylvester, and especially Walter glared at Happy once Paige had gone away.

"That was some uncalled for hostility," Toby noted.

"Look, she's a J-tech. They're practically a dime a dozen; she isn't special, not like us," Happy defended.

"Except that Marshal Gallo specifically assigned her to us. He doesn't do stuff like that unless he has a reason," Walter retorted.

"Psh, whatever," Happy blew off as she rolled her eyes.

Then she spotted a technician apparently not being careful enough for her standards and took off to rip the poor guy's head off.

"I thought you were working with her on her hostility," Walter muttered to Toby.

"One day at a time. She misses Leon; she didn't want to come here. Give her some time and space, and she'll come around," Toby explained.

"Well let's hope another Kaiju doesn't come through the breech until then," Walter remarked dryly as Happy walked back to them.

"I crunched the numbers before we left and then again on the way here. The next breech shouldn't be for another week and a half..." Sylvester trailed off as his eyes fixated on a figure trying to spy on them from behind a stack equipment.

Walter frowned at Sylvester until he followed his line of sight. The person looked like a teenage boy, perhaps in his early to mid-teens. Rather thin and scrawny but wiry. He ducked his head and stepped further behind the equipment, trying to hide himself.

Happy huffed and marched over to him. "Yo, you got a problem?" she demanded as she put her hands on her hips.

The young man shook his head 'no' vigorously.

"What are you doing here?" Happy questioned.

"I... wanted to meet Team Scorpion," he admitted.

"Well don't hang in the shadows like that, kid. People will think you're a creeper. Come on," Happy encouraged as she practically dragged the kid back over to the group.

"Hi," the kid offered timidly. "I overheard your conversation, and you're wrong. By my calculations, we have nine days, 18 hours, and 23 minutes."

"And you are?" Toby asked as he raised a curious brow.

"Ralph."

"I take it by your school uniform and backpack that you just got out of school," Toby observed as Ralph nodded.

"So what are you doing down here, kid?" Happy questioned again.

"My mom told me Team Scorpion was coming here and I wanted to see you for myself. You must be Happy Quinn, inventor of the digitized Jaeger, and you also invented the technology that made it possible for Jaeger appendages to be interchangeable as well as transformable. Your work has saved 38 Jaeger Pilots to date."

"Well it's great to meet a fan," Toby replied happily as he reached out to shake the young man's hand.

Ralph smiled brightly and shook his hand back firmly.

"So what algorithms did you use to come to your results?" Sylvester asked.

"Come with me, I'll show you," Ralph offered as he nodded toward the elevators.

The team readily followed him and found themselves in what appeared to be an abandoned classroom with several chalk boards, all of them covered in mathematic equations.

"You did all of this?" Walter inquired as he looked at them all in astonishment.

"Yup," Ralph confirmed with a nod.

"Amazing," Sylvester muttered in awe.

"How old are you?" Walter asked.

"I'll be sixteen in December."

"So you just turned fifteen a few months ago," Walter clarified.

"Yeah," Ralph admitted in a huff of defeat.

"So how long have you and your family been stationed here?" Walter inquired.

"Six years, and it's just my mom and I," Ralph clarified.

"What does your mom do? Is she a pilot?" Walter asked curiously.

"She's a J-tech," he answered.

"So do you want to engineer Jaegers?"

"I already do," Ralph stated. "I'm designing a remote-controlled one, or at least a Jaeger that only needs one pilot, since there are lots of people who would be great pilots if they didn't have to worry about the neural bridge with someone else."

"I've been working on the same thing," Walter admitted excitedly.

"It's an issue that needs to be resolved. That wall isn't going to keep them out, and we will need all the pilots we can get," Ralph insisted.

"I completely agree. See, a fifteen year old has a better grasp of reality than a room full of bureaucratic geezers," Walter asserted before they heard Paige calling for Ralph from the hallway.

"Crap," Ralph whispered to himself as his eyes flickered over to the door.

Walter frowned as he followed Ralph's gaze.

"Ralph, I hope you're in here doing your..." Paige began to say as she opened the door and stopped dead in her tracks, realizing who was in the room with her son. "… Homework," she finished in shock.

"What are you guys doing in here?" Paige posed to the team, who were gaping at her sudden appearance.

"Wait… that's your mom?" Walter questioned, watching as Ralph nodded before he turned to address her. "Your son found us in the loading bay and he wanted to show us his calculations for the next breech," he answered her.

Paige turned to her son with a stern face, causing him to duck his head a little and shove his hands in his pockets.

"I'm sorry he bothered you," Paige apologized tightly.

"No, no, he isn't bothering us at all," Sylvester chimed in as he started to wring his hands, uncomfortable that they had unknowingly gotten their new friend in trouble.

"He's exceptionally brilliant. I'm sure you're very proud," Toby added.

"He is, thank you," Paige accepted graciously, but still didn't move from her spot. "Ralph, it's getting close to dinner time," she said as she gestured for him to come to her. "You can finish your homework in your room."

"Wait," Walter called out as they turned to leave. "We are all a team now, right? We could have dinner together in the mass hall," he suggested. "It would give us a chance to get to know you since you seem to already know a lot about us."

Paige blinked a few times. "Okay..." she agreed hesitantly as she watched her son's face light up for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Ralph practically bolted to his quarters to drop off his backpack and quickly change out of his school uniform before rejoining his mom and the team in the hallway as they waited for him. Walter made several mental notes as to where Paige and Ralph's quarters were in reference to where his own were. They were surprisingly almost neighbors, which brought a few flutters to Walter's core, and which he promptly dismissed as hunger pains.

Once Ralph was back he practically monopolized the team's attention. Paige kept looking at her son strangely. He had never talked this much before, to anyone, ever, except for herself. She watched as the whole team seemed to be almost enchanted with her son. It was like he was one of them. A long lost relative of sorts. She barely said two words the whole time, but she could tell that this was probably going to be the new normal for them.

Over the next few days, Walter made it a point to work as closely as he could with Paige while Ralph seemed to make himself just as much a part of Team Scorpion as all the others. So one day when Walter found himself alone, trying to find a sequencing pattern, it felt odd, and he went off in search of Paige and Ralph. She wasn't at her desk, and after asking a few people he found out it was her day off.

"She's probably in the city," one her co-workers had offered. "She usually spends the whole day with her son on her days off."

Walter nodded in understanding, and on the way back to his quarters, he decided to take a detour to at least try to see if they were home yet. As he knocked, he noticed Paige's neighbor leaving for her shift.

"Excuse me, but do you know Paige and Ralph Dineen?" he asked.

The woman raised a curious brow but slowly nodded warily.

"Do you know where they are?"

"Who are you?" she asked back.

"I'm Walter O'Brien. My team just got here from California..."

"Oh, you're from Team Scorpion," the woman suddenly realized as she relaxed and smiled.

"Yes I am," Walter confirmed with a proud smile.

"They should be getting back from the city any minute, then they'll probably go to the fitness center. Paige likes work out on the elliptical a few times a week, and Ralph has been working really hard trying to build up his strength and stamina. That boy wants to be a pilot so badly," she explained as she turned to him fully.

"He does? I thought he wanted to be an engineer," Walter alleged as he noted her name tag and rank: Kelsey Thomas, Engineer.

"Oh, he wants that too. That boy would BE a Jaeger if he could, but he can't connect," Kelsey furthered as she tapped her head in gesture.

"What?" Walter asked, needing a bit more clarification.

"Ralph is a very special young man. He is incredibly smart and gifted, but sometimes when people are that smart they can't connect emotionally, and from what I understand about Jaeger Pilots, in order to drift, there needs to be some kind of connection. Paige has struggled to connect with him his whole life, so it's impossible for him to connect with anyone else."

"Huh," Walter pondered for a moment as he got a feeling of deja vu passing over him. "So they should be in the fitness center eventually?"

"If they aren't already there," She guessed.

Walter nodded in thanks to her before he walked off toward his quarters to change into some workout clothing. Then he walked into the fitness center to see Paige and Ralph walking on the treadmills and talking to each other quietly.

"Hey, guys, mind if I join you?" Walter asked as he strode up to them.

"Sure," Ralph answered as Walter got on the treadmill next to him.

Paige smiled and noticed that all three of them had begun walking in sync, until Ralph increased the speed on his treadmill so he was going the fastest. Then it was Walter's turn to increase his speed and for Ralph to match him.

Paige rolled her eyes. Men and their need to constantly compete…

This continued until both Ralph and Walter were in dead runs, both running about as fast as they could, breathing hard and sweating profusely. Paige was still walking at a regular pace, watching her son and her new co-worker try to one up each other. She should have been strangely amused and proud that her son had grown physically fit enough to keep up with an adult, if she wasn't so worried that at any minute something would go wrong and they would either do a face plant or break their legs.

"Ralph, slow it down," Paige warned when she noticed others had stopped to stare.

Ralph ignored her and just continued to run, Walter doing the same. Paige then saw little flashing lights from other people's camera phones, recording the scene. Paige glared at them and stopped her treadmill to confront the other people filming. They turned off their phones and put them away, but Walter and Ralph were still running.

"Guys, knock it off!" Paige barked more out of worry than anything.

"Okay," Walter relented as he slammed the button to slow down his treadmill as Ralph did the same.

They came to a stop, both of them breathing heavily but smiling at each other.

"What is wrong with you two?" Paige demanded, putting her hands on her hips as she watched them recover.

"Just some friendly competition," Walter replied.

Ralph nodded in agreement.

Paige huffed and shook her head, trying to fight a grin. Men were impossible sometimes.

* * *

><p><em>Author's notes- Thank you so much Alaburn for betaing you're the best. <em>

_Also thank you Kenadee for reviewing! You were signed in as a guest so I couldn't thank you privately, But a big shout out to you for being the first to review! _


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